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Month: February 2017

For women in film, the conflict that emerges between family and career often come to a head, disallowing a female protagonist from having the best of both worlds. This has often been the case for Carrie and, with Brody finally leaving his family, Carrie is presented with the option to choose a “normal” family life with the man she has come to love. However, it is made clear that choosing Brody means abandoning the career with which she has been so unabashedly faithful.

In his work, The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault wrote of confession and how the act of confession relates to overarching societal power structures. “The confession is a ritual of discourse in which the speaking subject is also the subject of the statement; it is also a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence or virtual presence of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession, prescribes and appreciates it, and intervenes in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile;”

Although I could go on in some detail about the interesting parallels of Brody and Carrie and their struggles in navigating the clash of their past and present lives, I was actually much more intrigued this week by the representation of and cooperation among women in these episodes. There appears to be a strong indication that a “community of women” can work together to get things done.

If nothing else, the final four episodes of the first season effectively call into question which party (the terrorists or the USA) is actually standing on higher ground, the Americans or the terrorists? Is there much difference between them?